Conrad the Sailor

Chuck Jones's 'Conrad the Sailor' is a totally lifeless cartoon starring the short-lived Conrad Cat character. Conrad is not much of a character at all, mainly memorable for being voiced by Pinto Colvig (instantly recognisable as the voice of Disney's Goofy). Here he is awkwardly paired with Daffy Duck for a painfully slow-moving chase aboard a ship. Conrad is a sailor (as the title suggests), swabbing the decks and singing happily until he comes across the muddy-footed Daffy whose antics instantly enrage him. Jones's take on this early, crazy version of Daffy was significantly more muted than those of Tex Avery and Bob Clampett and 'Conrad the Sailor' has a similarly draggy pace as Jones's previous Daffy film 'Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur'. The set-up is weak, the execution terrible and none of the jokes hit the mark. There's no sign of the spellbinding talent Jones would eventually prove to be in this cartoon. The ending is also completely feeble in that it's not really an ending at all. The time just seems to run out and the iris closes on the continuing chase. As a long term Daffy Duck fanatic, there are few cartoons that feature the little black genius that don't elicit some sort of positive reaction from me. 'Conrad the Sailor' is one of the exceptions and one of the few Warner cartoons that brings me not one iota of joy whatsoever.

There are some good things to Conrad the Sailor, primarily the excellent voice acting of Mel Blanc and Pinto Colvig(original voice of Goofy). The music was very nice, Conrad singing Shoving Right Off From Home Again was a nice touch. One or two of the visual gags are funny, namely the chase around the deck and when Conrad fires the deck gun with Daffy in it. However, what didn't impress is that the other jokes don't work, they are either unfunny or repetitive and the dialogue is lame on the most part. Also the animation isn't up the usual standard, instead of being colourful and solid, it looks somewhat dull, and Conrad especially is drawn poorly. Speaking of Conrad, the only exceptional element to him was Colvig's voicing, other than that he is a very dull foil for Daffy. As for Daffy, we all know he has a wacky, manic and outrageous persona, though he can be cruel as well, but the poor dialogue does not put him to good use. Finally, the pacing, there are some cartoons that suffer slightly from being a little too quick, though others are perfect, but the pacing if anything was too slow here. Overall, it had its moments but sorry I didn't think it was that great, that was furthermore spoilt by an abrupt ending. 4/10 Bethany Cox

"Conrad the Sailor" is a WWII-era cartoon from Looney Tunes. And, like some other shorts by the studio, it has strong propaganda themes and I assumed they were trying to create a likable recurring character in Conrad, though he really WASN'T very likable or interesting. The only interesting aspect of him is that he sounds just like Disney's Goofy...as the same voice actor did Conrad's voice.

As far as the plot goes, for some inexplicable reason, Daffy Duck is trying to annoy Conrad and seemingly undermine America's war effort. Perhaps Daffy was a member of the Axis. All I do know is that the short was watchable but substandard.

When I put: "An interesting episode", I'm talking more about how and when and why the episode was made instead of just what happens in it. It is interesting because it was made just before the Americans entered the Second World War, it has a song that was later partly used in "Duck Amuck" ("Over the sea, let's go men" etc) and the actor for the cat Conrad is the same person who voiced Goofy - Pinto Colvig! It is easy of course to recognise his voice - but I was very surprised when I heard it!

As for the episode, I like it. The farce may be overdone somewhat (for me anyway), but luckily it makes up with good jokes and the theme of the episode. There is good singing, good quotes from Daffy and Conrad, though he is horrible to Daffy, is quite a likable character anyway (guess in the same way we feel about Yosemite Sam and Wile Coyote, eh?).

On a Navy ship, there is a cat sailor called Conrad, who is merrily swabbing the deck (easily with our "modern" mop). He sees strange muddy footprints and then the little black duck and is very angry with Daffy that he has wandered on board with muddy duck feet. Hyper antics follow when Daffy decides that he does not like Conrad...

Mainly for people who prefer the older Daffy Duck and farce, enjoy "Conrad the Sailor"! :-)

One of the things that I notice about Chuck Jones's "Conrad the Sailor" is that it got released about two months after the United States entered WWII. I suspect that Chuck filmed it (at least most of it) before we entered, so he didn't realize his perfect timing! But that's just speculation. The cartoon itself is a riot, as Daffy Duck teases Conrad, a deck-cleaner looking like a cross between a cat and a dog (although I think that he's supposed to be a cat) and having a face like the humans chasing Bugs Bunny in "Wackiki Wabbit" and "Hare Conditioned". Daffy makes a complete mess of everything that Conrad does. It's a true representation of Daffy back when his name really described his personality: acting totally silly for no discernible reason. Beyond that, it shows something else: during Chuck Jones's first few years as director, his cartoons were more like Disney cartoons (if you've seen any Sniffles cartoons, you'll know what I mean); but once Chuck's work took a turn for the outright zany, he went all out! Anyway, a timeless classic.

PS: Pinto Colvig, who provided Conrad's voice, also voiced Goofy in the Disney cartoons.